GUIDELINES MANUALS

Identify problems in the A/E professions, find those who
have successful solutions, and publish them.

Most of the problems are in the administrative and
project management realms. A major reason for this
is the almost total lack of education in these topics
in the design schools.

There is also a lack of education in technical realms that
occupy most of the time, cost, and liability issues of
project management. Thus construction documents
that require the most time, money, and personnel
in any design office receive the lowest level of educational
attention and professional esteem. These are ongoing
topics of Guidelines research and publishing.

And Guidelines has no problem publishing information
that the professional societies will not, or cannot
for legal reasons. The AIA, for example, cannot
publish surveys of fees charged for architectural
services. But we can and do so year after year.

Also, the AIA and professional financial information
companies tend to ignore the leading problems of
the great majority of offices. 80% of A/E offices have
six or fewer total staff members and management, but
the vast majority of published management information
is primarily relevant to the largest offices.

So that's our formula—problems and solutions—which
we now also apply to professional design education at
our San Francisco Institute of Architecture (SFIA),
www.sfia.net.

If you experience a lack of solid information on problems
you encounter in your practice, please let me hear about it.